British Art Studies, a born-digital, open-access journal, co-published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (PMC) and the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), launched in November 2015. This article documents how and why British Art Studies was established and the ethos that has motivated the editorial team to always think "beyond the PDF" in creating a new digital publication for the field of art history. Drawing on case studies of articles and features published in the first seven issues of British Art Studies, the purpose of this article is to reflect on the creation and development of the journal alongside the broader critical and methodological questions that have guided and shaped our approach to publishing. Co-written by the current editorial and production team, this article explores how establishing and maintaining British Art Studies has enabled us and our authors to join the growing conversation about the intersection and cross-fertilization of art-historical research with digital tools and technologies.

This article focuses on the research that the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has conducted with users in the process of digitising its photo archive. Converting this resource from photographs mounted on card to digital assets appears, at first glance, a relatively straightforward digitisation project. However, the questions, challenges and issues raised by this project have prompted us to not only focus on the ‘how’ (the process of this conversion), but also the ‘why’. As the project has progressed, these questions about why we are digitising our photo archive and what benefit/s this will have to users and its impact on the field of British art history in the future have grown more voluble.